How Musicians Can Register the Copyright of Their Songs?

How Musicians Can Register the Copyright of Their Songs?

There are many aspiring singers and musicians who write their own songs. In this situation, they could be eager to protect their rights. However, the song will be effectively protected only if has been processed in a more tangible form. It means that, the song has been written down, recorded, videotaped, shown to the public and others. In some countries, the very first performer of a song, obtain the rights of the song, even if it hasn’t been registered in the local Copyright Office. However, with registration, we should be able to legally prevent people from using our song. There are clear benefits of registering our song:

We will be able to create presumptions of validity and ownership of our song. The song can be registered to the office within specific duration of time on which we release our works.

We will be entitled to attorney’s fees and other statutory damages, if our work is infringed. However, there could be a period of time before this benefit can take effect.

We will be able to gain benefits, without even bringing suit against infringers. They could be persecuted immediately and the trial will be concluded relatively quickly.

It is a good thing to know that we can register our song cheaply. Also, singers should be able to register the copyright of the song by themselves. The first thing we need to do is to gather enough information in the official website of the Copyright Office. We should know what we need to prepare to register our song. Some countries, allow artists to register their works through online means. They can access the website and perform the online registration process. Costs for online registration could vary, depending to the country, ranging from free to moderately expensive. In the United States, musicians can register their works for less than $50 per registration. When using these websites, we will need to register as users and the process should be the same that is by creating our password and username. Once we complete the registration, we will be able to log into the website and perform the online registration process. We will need to upload the necessary documents to satisfy our requirements.

If we want, we can register our work in the old fashioned way – that is by going to the Copyright office and use real paper for our documents. It will cost approximately the same to register our work with this method, but many musicians may feel sure about the process. We know that our documents have been submitted directly to the Copyright Office and we can ask the employees about the process and when it can be completed. However, some Copyright Office intentionally tries to eliminate paper-based process, so the only way we can do this is through the Internet. We could start downloading forms and gathering all the necessary evidences to make sure that we can complete the whole process. This should be a great way to register our works.